Renewing Your Passion For Life III, the Mystery of Unanswered Prayer

Lord, as we take a moment right now to focus our hearts on the word, I pray that you would enliven us, Lord, give us the power of concentration. Let us know that there's something today that we need to take out of this place with us that can transform our daily walk, that can renew hope in our hearts, Lord. For those of us that have found the week or even this last season of our life to be difficult, renew our hope. For those of us, Lord, that have been praying and praying and praying and not getting answers, help us to know how we can hold on until you come through. And I thank you, Lord, for a place where faith is alive, where answers to prayer are commonplace because you're at work amongst us. We give you praise now in Jesus' name. Amen. All right. Thank you. You can be seated. Take these notes out of your outline. Again, if you're a guest today, this is a way that we encourage you to just follow along and have something tangible to take. And some people say, oh, I forgot my pen. Now, after the first week, there's absolutely no grace for that excuse. You know this is going to come out. Bring a pen. And there will be extra pens and pencils always available out there for you to pick up in the event you forget to bring yours. This really is a helpful little way for you to benefit from the message. And, you know, sometimes prayers get answered quickly and sometimes they take a while. And just before we look at the Scripture, I want to give you an illustration I'm going to remember right before Christmas when I introduced by means of video our new puppy, Tucker, the chocolate lab. He was this little seven-week-old, innocent little thing. And Pastor Jeff named him something nasty like the cat terminator. And I've been talking about this now for six months. I've been quiet because some of you are sensitive about cats. God's wired you to love cats. And I appreciate that. But one of my prayers was that there would be a balance in my house. I've had three cats for a long time, and I needed a balance. So I said, Lord, bring a balancing animal into my... because my other dog was like at the mercy of the cats. So we've been training Tucker. I just want you to see him now. He's going to come up here on the screen. And he's finally learning his role, his rightful place in our home. There he is. He's six months old, about eight months old now. Well, here's his friend, Miss Kitty. And you see him giving Miss Kitty a kiss. And I said, Tucker, that's fine, but you've got to assert yourself and let Miss Kitty know what the deal is here. Because if you let them, cats will just take over the place. So he's like, all right, well, I have to get a little bit more assertive. And so they get into it. And they'll duke it out. I'm having him for lunch is what the deal is here. Well, it took me eight months of prayer before he got to that place. But I just want you to... Okay, you can kill the video now. Don't applaud. You'll lose a lot of friends. I had people after the first... When your kids leave home, folks, you look for things to do. Let me tell you. Okay, Luke 18. I know, it's pathetic. Your pastor, you're going to go on to the guys. Luke 18. Let's look at this. Luke 18. Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. He said, in a certain town, there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared about men. And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, grant me justice against my adversary. For some time, he refused. But finally, he said to himself, even though I don't fear God or care about men, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice so that she won't eventually wear me out with her coming. And the Lord said, listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will see that they get justice and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth? Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. One of the more common subjects that come to my attention amongst members of our church are the problems dealing with unanswered prayer. People who say to me things like, you know, how long should I pray for my spouse who's left me and doesn't appear to be responding at all, doesn't want to come back and reconcile? How long should I pray for my sick relative who has a very serious illness and doesn't seem to be responding? How long should I pray, single people will say, for a mate when I'm so lonely and I don't know why God doesn't seem to answer my prayer? How long should I pray for my children who just seem to be so rebellious and could care less about? How long should I pray about this dead-end job that I'm in? People say, I don't know why God doesn't seem to answer my prayers. Now, Jesus seemed to know that we could be easily discouraged. That's why he wrote this parable. That's why he said, look at it, we should always pray and not give up. Now, this parable, by the way, is one of those interesting places where Jesus uses a rather colorful character to point out a lesson. The characters in the New Testament are not bland. Here's this hardened, uncaring, ungodly judge. I mean, this guy, he's just an authority and he's wielding that power. And Jesus talks about him as compared to this very kind of innocent, unassuming, bottom of the socioeconomic ladder, because widows in that day really had very little status in the culture. All that widow had against that judge was one thing. What was it? Persistence. That's right. She just kept nagging him. And Jesus uses this parable. And by the way, for those of you who say, well, does that mean that God's like this uncaring father and we're to be like this nagging old widow? No. Remember, there's two kinds of usages of parables. One is what's called teaching by contrast and the other is teaching by comparison. When Jesus is comparing, he's saying this conforms to that. When it's contrast, he's saying it's the opposite way. The point is that our Father in Heaven is so much more caring and loving. If this judge who is ungodly and uncaring and unsympathetic will finally get into persistence, how much more will our Father in Heaven hear our prayers? Friends, some of you have to be thinking early on. You're thinking, you know, I've heard that before, Jay, and I've prayed about things that I really care about and I think God cares about them, and those prayers still aren't answered. How many of you have had a prayer that was not answered? Of course. If you didn't lift your hand, you haven't prayed. All of us struggle with this. It's a very legitimate question. And I have to tell you, just right out of the gate, I was tempted to go down the route that talked about all the reasons on your end of things that prayers don't get answered. I could talk about pride. Why did Paul not have his prayer answered, that God would remove that thorn in his flesh, whatever it was? Why? Why? Was Paul a godly man? Should God have answered that prayer by all external evaluations? Absolutely. The Bible tells you why he didn't answer it. He had a thorn in his side so that he would not be puffed out by the great revelations that had been given to him through the Spirit of God. So God didn't answer his prayer. He said, my grace will be sufficient for you. Pride is one reason we don't get our prayers answered. Another one is just prayerlessness. We pray in the moment when we really care about it, but then we walk away from it. And I could go on and talk at quite a bit of length about why this church has not yet seen the fulfillment of some of our prayers because we haven't really been earnest about some of the things that matter most to God. And I could go on. But, you know, the Lord directed me not to go that route, but rather to focus on what you can do to get your prayers answered. And that's where I want to go today. I want to talk about always praying and not giving up. Because, friends, you're doing one or the other in life all the time. You're either praying or giving up. How can you keep on praying? What can motivate you to persist in prayer? Let me give you four things, biblically speaking, that I see. Four things. Number one, why keep on praying? Well, number one, persistent prayer focuses my attention on God. Focuses my attention on God. Prayer reminds you on a daily basis who the source of all of your answers is. It's not you. If you're like me, most of us are pretty motivated to take care of business on our own. And when something happens, you know, we think, well, what can I do to make it work and how can I make it happen? And prayer focuses our attention not on ourselves but on God. Prayer reminds us at times we have to just leave things with God because we can't do them on our own. And, by the way, persistent praying isn't blackmailing God. It's not twisting His arm until He gives us the answer. It's a function of keeping us focused and believing in Him. Now, one reason why our prayers aren't instantly answered is pretty obvious to me. I think Keith Kraft touched on this several weeks ago. But if you had the power to have your prayers answered right now, how many of you know you'd be dangerous? You'd walk out of here and there's someone blocking you, getting out of this, you know, Lord, bring down your fire, get that car out of there, I need to go. Now, that's an exaggeration, but how many of you know you would use prayer to get your ends? Hmm? How many of you have at least one godless thought this week towards somebody else? If you're like me, I mean, you just wonder why God lets some people get away with such things, you know? And so you'd pray God's judgment on them. Interestingly enough, there's illustrations of the disciples having that same attitude. Bring down fire. And Jesus rebuked them for that. So God knows that we can only tolerate so much authority, especially of the kind that would be instantaneous. But the second reason is that if God gave us the answer to prayer just right when we prayed, you know what, we'd start seeing God as this giant heavenly vending machine that just, you know, you come in and put your prayer in the slot and pull the old lever down and out would come the blessing. And what would happen very shortly into that process? Who would you forget about? You'd forget about God because you'd be looking for the blessing. Think about it. Tell me what the Pepsi vending machine looks like in your dorm complex or down here, you know, out in the hallway where you work. You don't even think of the vending machine. You just think of what's in the product, and that's the way it would be with God. You would lose focus on God and think about the blessing. Does God want you to be more in tune with the blessing or the blessor? He wants you to know him. And so that's why he doesn't answer our prayers instantaneously. In fact, he says, you know, get aside with me and get to know me because prayers really ultimately, parents, you know what I'm talking about. You know about the focus of where things are. Look at Matthew 6.6. Here's what he wants you to do, Jesus writes. Find a quiet, secluded place so you won't be tempted to role play before God. Just be there as simply and honestly as you can manage. The focus will shift from you to God, and you will begin to sense his grace. I just love that translation because, you see, in its essence, prayer is about getting in tune with the grace of God. And you do that best when you get alone, get out of the pretense of trying to convince someone else that your prayers are spiritual enough. You know, sometimes, I'll just be honest, sometimes we get in meetings and I hear people really trying hard to be impressive to God and somebody else. All-mimictant, all-gracious, most godly, holy Father, giveth of life and blessing in all creation, and on and on they go. You know, it's a carryover from our religious heritage that we bring into it. You know, parents, if your kids come in and say, Oh, blessed Father who created this family, giveth us our allowance this day, I pray. I mean, what are you going to do, dads? What? It's a role play, right? Just be honest, just converse with God, just talk to God. John Wimber wrote that the most he ever prayed at a time was 15 minutes. And I don't think there was a more godly man that lived in the last few decades. But he prayed conversationally, he prayed authentically, he prayed from his heart. And that's what God wants. He wants you to focus your attention on Him, because He is the source of your answers. Second, persistent praying clarifies my request. Clarifies my request, what does that mean? Well, sometimes, friends, we pray certain things because we think we know what we want, and it isn't long into the prayer where we realize we don't know what we want. Now, how many of you know what I'm talking about? You thought it was something you should be praying, and you went along for a while, and then you realized that you... Well, let me just be kind of real carnal about it. How many of you prayed for someone to be your boyfriend or girlfriend, and now, looking back five years later, said, Oh, my gosh, if God had answered that prayer, I'd be in deep trouble, huh? Sometimes we need to just wait, God doesn't answer our prayers, because we need to really clarify, this is really what I need in my life, this is what I want in my life. In the Phillips translation of Philippians 4-6, it says, Just present to God every detail of your need in earnest and thankful prayer. Every detail. God is into details. Make no mistake about it. He wants to know the details of your need. And I must tell you, having been with many of you, and I started thinking about this, I'm not exaggerating, thousands of prayer meetings. Thousands of them. I've heard too many people pray vague prayers. Oh, Lord, be with so-and-so. He's already with them. Don't pray be with them. Lord, touch so-and-so. Well, touch them where? In the head? In the leg? What does that mean? Bless so-and-so. Sometimes when you say pray a prayer of blessing, God brings blessing at times through trial and adversity. I'd much rather have someone pray blessing for Pastor Jay in a specific way, because you know what? God has very unusual ways at times to bring about blessing. Be specific. Turn to your neighbor and say, be specific. Turn to your neighbor and tell them, be specific. Very specific. The more specific you are, the more likely it is God will answer your prayer. Parents, you know when your kids want something, don't you? I mean, you can tell the difference between that when they want it and when they really want it. Have you ever heard your kids say, well, I want this for Christmas, and you went and bought it for Christmas, and they came down, and they said, oh, I didn't really, oh, that's a surprise to them that you picked up on it. What do you really, really want? That's the important thing. And being specific, that so creates a sense of God did it when the answer comes. Let me give you an illustration. Our son Jonathan is overseas this summer, and he's in a country where he doesn't speak the language and doesn't know anybody. And so he said, Dad, I really need to find a fellowship. And so Karen and I started saying, okay, well, let's just pray for a fellowship. And didn't find any the first week. And at our beta group, which is our little small group that many of you have joined for this season, this 10-week season, we shared a prayer request. And the Lord prompted me to say in that beta group, pray for an English-speaking church. Now, that was a whole level of specificity, got it out, that I hadn't prayed before. At that moment, as I shared the request, one of the people in our beta group looked up and said, hey, my brother was a missionary in that particular city. He knows a couple of churches. She finished prayer. She called her brother, who's now in Philadelphia. He gave us the phone number of a couple of churches. We called Jonathan the next day. He connected with the churches. And three days later, he was worshiping in a little English-speaking church in that city. God answered prayer. Now, I want you to know, friend, that was not a coincidence. It was not accidental. I had no clue of any way I was going to get him in contact with someone there. But when I got specific, God heard and provided the answer that we needed. Be specific in your prayers. And be willing to clarify. Look what it says here. The Holy Spirit helps us in our distress. For we don't even know how we should pray. Have you ever been so depressed you didn't know how to pray? Have you ever felt just so lost and confused you didn't know how to pray? Anybody? Ever been so angry you just couldn't pray? You were just so mad about it? So bewildered that you just didn't know where to go? Well, the Bible says when that happens, look, the Holy Spirit prays for us with groanings that can't be expressed in words. When you get to that situation, there's good news for you. The news is that the Holy Spirit will pray for you. How does that happen? You get in touch with the Spirit. And this is where the whole dynamic of what the Bible calls a prayer language or speaking in tongues in your personal prayer life gives you a dimension of speaking to God with groanings deeper than words. These aren't mental words. This is an internal language that the Spirit of God gives you. So you just transition right into the language of the Spirit and He prays specific prayers that you need. And if you need more teaching on that, I've done some teaching. It's in the library or in the teaching tape ministry. You can learn how to pray in the Spirit and let the Spirit of the Lord direct your prayers. Letter C, persistent praying tests my faith. Proverbs 17, fire tests the purity of silver and gold, but the Lord tests the heart. Church, make no mistake about this. It's the Lord now and then who allows you to face situations that are not pleasant so that your faith can be found out for what it really is. How many of you know God isn't fooled? You may act spiritual. You may sit here right now with a big, thick Bible, just copiously writing notes. You might be here with no Bible at all, barely staying awake. God knows what's going on in your heart. And He's every once in a while going to put a test in front of you. You don't know what it's going to be. It could be a very radical test of your faith or a very simple one. He's testing you. He's helping you to know what's really going on inside and He's purifying your heart to see whether or not what's going on in there is for real. He did this with the disciples. One time there was 5,000 people listening to Jesus speak and they were hungry and the disciples said, Send them home. They're hungry. Jesus turned to them and said, What? Send them to Big Mac. What did He say? You feed them. Now if you were a disciple, there's 12 of you. There's 5,000 of them. What would you do? You'd do what they did. They said, No way. How am I going to do that? We have nothing here. And Jesus took their simple little bit of bread and fish and multiplied it and fed everyone and their faith was tested. Another time the disciples were going across the sea of Galilee in a ship and this huge storm came up and Jesus was asleep. Remember what the disciples said? Master, save us. What? We're going to perish. The boat's going to go down. And Jesus rebuked and said, You have little faith. He was testing their faith. You may be going through a time when your prayers are not answered because God is testing your faith to see if it's really in there or if all this is just sort of a show that you put on on Sundays and you know the answer. What's the number one way that God tests your faith? The most common test of faith is what? For me, anyhow, it's delay, right? It's like you're just going to have to wait a while. You're just going to have to wait a little while. Have you ever been more of a hurry than God has been to get a prayer answered? Have you ever had some microwave kind of prayers like, God, I need this answer in like 30 seconds. I'm late for work. I need guidance. Can I put this in the prayer microwave? I can give you two minutes max. And we get to where we need the answer now. We need the guidance now. We need the money now. We need the healing now. And God says, I'm not in a hurry, Dom. I don't need to be in a hurry because I'm God and you're just going to have to trust me. I've heard him say that to me. Jay, I'm sorry you're in a hurry, but I'm not. I love God, but I don't understand why he never hurries. Never once does the Bible say, Jesus hurried off to Jerusalem. It doesn't say that. Why? What's happening? Because something's going on. There's a testing of our faith. God wants us to mature, and maturing happens as you learn to wait. Let me give you an illustration. How patient is a two-year-old when it's snack time? When it's time to eat, what does a two-year-old do? How patient are they? Oh, okay, Mommy, I'll be happy to wait for you to bring my snack down. No, what do they do? They fuss and carry on, like, where's my snack? How about a teenager? Not much different, right? Hey, what's the deal? Where's that? Or as my wife said in the first service, what's the difference between that and you? I mean, as soon as it's dinner time, what's up here? We're not that patient. But you see, that time of waiting is a time of maturing. The difference between when you want it and when you get it, that is the season of maturity. And your ability to wait patiently is a measure of your maturity. Now, along the way, you might have to exercise your faith. Now, faith is like a muscle. Those of you who work out know that muscles grow because you put resistance against them and it increases the blood flow and causes things to circulate in there and all that. And then once you relax it, that process over time creates growth. Faith is like that. When you use it, it grows. If you don't use it, you lose it. Reese Howells was a terrific missionary pioneer to Africa earlier in this century, in the 30s and 40s of this century. And when he was first starting out, he wanted to go to Africa and he didn't have any money. And so he said, well, he told his church prayer group, pray for me, I need to go to Africa. And they started to pray. Three weeks later, one of the prayer group members stopped by his flat. He was in the northern part of England. And they said, well, why are you still here? He said, well, I haven't gotten the money yet. And this friend said, well, how much money do you have? He said, well, I have enough to get to London. They thought for a moment, they said, well, get on the train and go to London and just trust God. Well, Reese Howells thought about it and said, OK. Packed his bags, got everything together, got on the train, went to London, got off the train. He's standing there in the train yard, just kind of there with his bags, kind of wondering, now what do I do now? He's just going to, da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da, no money, what am I going to do? And the Spirit of the Lord spoke into his heart and said this, he said, if you had money right now, what would you do? Well, if I had money, I'd go buy a ticket on the next ship to Africa. And the Spirit of the Lord said, well, go get in line. He said, but I don't have any money. Time to trust the Lord. So he grabs his things, walks whatever distance it was over to the place where they're selling tickets for the next ship to Africa. Twenty-five people in line in front of him, slow-moving line, because, you know, they're doing processing of passports and all that kind of stuff. It takes him a couple of hours. He's four people from the window, no money, no ticket, no clue. A guy turns around and says to him, I can't wait any longer. Here are two tickets to Africa. I just wanted a refund. If you can use them, God bless you, I've got to catch my other ship. And handed him two tickets to Africa. And if you know the story, he became a vital missionary, and that particular incident launched his faith to where Reese Howells became known as Reese Howells Intercessor. Friends, sometimes you just have to take a step of faith and trust that God will fulfill what's next. And let me share this one thing to you. One specific reason why prayers aren't answered at times is because in the middle of exercising your faith, you get tired and give up. And one thing that God wants you to know is there are times when he's already answered your prayers and the answer is on the way, it's in the mail, if you will, and it gets blocked by forces of darkness. Look up on the overhead here on the screen. In Daniel chapter 10, there's a story where Daniel is praying and the Bible says that the angel comes to him and says, The Father heard your prayer. The very day that he prayed, it says, I was sent here to meet you with the answer. But for 21 days, the mighty evil spirit who overrules the kingdom of Persia blocked my way. And then Michael, one of the top officers or archangels of the heavenly army, came to help me so I was able to break through the spirit-relic of Persia. Leave it up for just a second, please. Do you hear what this is saying? There are times when you pray, the answer is sent down from God and it's on the way, but there's opposition in the spirit. Why? Because there are times that the devil does not want to let go of something that you want to have. And most particularly, this has to do with loved ones who don't know Christ. Listen to me carefully right now. Some of you have been praying for people to come to know the Lord and they've not responded. And you're wondering, why hasn't God answered my prayer? Listen to me. It's not because God doesn't love the person you care about. The moment you prayed earnestly, the answer's on its way. But there are forces who don't want to let go of him. And if you give up, if you stop praying, who knows what the fate of that person might be. You've got to pray it through and ask God for help from above, for perseverance and even angelic power to break through those resistant forces so that your loved one can come to know Christ. That's the point, and that's one of the reasons why we need to pray and persevere and not give up. Quickly, number four, persistent praying prepares my heart for the answer. In other words, there are times that God wants to do more than you ask for. He wants to enlarge your heart enough that you can receive the answer that he has for you. Every time you have a request, God usually has more in mind than you even prayed for. Look at the scripture on your notes there. It says that, on the flip side, God can do much more than anything we can ask or imagine. Just one little story here. And most of you who are newer to us wouldn't know this, but for five years, many of us who were in the core of the church prayed for God to bless us with the property that was next to our old building. Our old building is the old restaurant, the Max Planck's now, behind H.O.P. Lumber there in McDonald's. We met there for years. We bought the restaurant in 1985, and by 1987, we were growing, and we knew we'd need more property. And so we marched on property, and we walked, and we prayed, and we were praying for years. And we'd start down a certain road, and God would close the door. And then, well, now, okay, we got that done. Now, oh, we have to get the permission of all the people next door to sign off on it. That took a year to get 52 signatures or whatever it was. Okay, then we go, oh, but, oh, there's a zoning problem. We have to do that. But for five years, we prayed. And we wondered, where's the answer? Why isn't God supplying? Certainly, God doesn't want the church to dry up here and be just capped off at a certain level because there's no parking, and people don't know where we are, and all this. And all the time that we thought God wasn't answering our prayer, what he was doing was preparing a better place for us. Many of you are here this morning. This auditorium was packed in the first service. Why? Because we were in a location that's much better for people to hear and to see and to discover the kingdom of God. And in the end, it's not about buildings. It's about disciples. But God knew this was a better place to make disciples. So he didn't answer this prayer because he wanted to enlarge this enough to be able to believe him for something better. God waited and waited and waited. We had a long delay so you could have a parking spot. And here you are today. God enlarged our heart. Here's a delay so he can enlarge your heart as well. Friends, persistent prayer. Don't give up. Don't give up. Quickly, how long should I keep on praying? Let me just touch on this one. Look what it says. Pray all the time, continually. Never stop praying. Jay, listen. I want you to know. I mean, I hear you, but I don't have, I mean, I just, I can't keep on. I've been praying for a miracle, a breakthrough, a change of heart, a relationship, and it's not happening. Let me give you two times when you can stop praying. Number one, you can stop praying when God changes the situation. When he answers your prayer, stop praying. You know, I prayed for someone that was here in the first service for four years to come to know Christ. Four years. I watched them. They were just more responsive. I prayed for them, talked to them. They just weren't interested. And when I wasn't around, they were in another city doing different things. God sent somebody else and they came to Christ. Well, I took them off my prayer list to receive Christ because they've done it. I have a question for you. How many of you have a prayer list for people to receive Christ? In my heart right now, it burdens me that a lot of us don't have that. If there is one thing that every member of this church should have, it's a prayer list of people that you have and you're bringing it to them. Because what's more important than that? What is a bigger deal than eternal destiny? What's more important than that loved one knowing Christ? You should be praying for them every single day. And when they come to know him, it's a, I can't tell you what a good, but it's to take your pen and just to kind of scratch through it and put a big paint on it. That's one time you can stop. The other time is when God changes your heart. Because it may come about that you have a change of heart, that you're no longer burdened to pray a certain way. God releases you from praying that way and you can move on. Listen, for some of you in a marital situation, it's gone on and on and on for years and years, and you're finally saying, you know what? I don't have a burden anymore. You can stop praying. God keeps that burden alive in you. He changes your heart. I had a burden for years and years and years for the inner city churches. Prayed for them, done things with them with that project. After the last celebration of unity that we had in, was it November of last year, it seemed that burden lifted. And I couldn't understand it. I wasn't burdened by it. And interestingly enough, God released me. So I stopped praying about it. Stopped being committed to it. And just about two months ago, Pastor Scott and I were meeting away from the church and the mayor of Pittsburgh started talking to us about the need of children, young people in the inner city. And his desire to see a church get involved with kids in need. And all of a sudden the light went on and I began to pray about kids in need. And I'll tell you something, next fall, listen, students who are here, some of you can be a great part of our mission next year by helping become a mentor to a student in your city. God's created a whole new passion. I'm really excited about it. For He changed my heart. So when God changes your heart, you can stop praying and go on to the next thing. Okay, number three, how do I wait in the Lord while I'm praying? Let me just talk quickly with these three things. First of all, wait patiently. In other words, when you're just in that season between what you want over here and where you are, and you're waiting, don't mumble and complain and grumble at God like, why aren't you doing this, God? Lift up. And don't, most of all, don't make it happen. Please don't make it happen. The greatest biblical illustration of someone who forced God's hand was a guy named